This is directed to a method for capturing the image of a handwritten signature, and associating it with an electronic document. Signatures are required for documents of many types, including contracts, and various business forms. As the shift has been made from paper documents to electronic documents, a number of approaches have been taken to capture handwritten signatures electronically. Most signature capture arrangements have used a touch responsive tablet and a stylus, such as those used in retail settings for the completion of credit card forms and transactions. It will be appreciated that such a system is expensive to install and to maintain. It may also be undesirable in some instances to have dedicated tablet and stylus equipment that is used by a great many people. For example, in a hospital admitting office where a series of patients use the equipment, touching the tablet and the stylus, there is a real possibility of surface contamination and the spread of illness.
As a consequence, systems have been devised that permit electronic documents and forms to be signed by an individual who uses his own tablet computer or smartphone. These systems have typically required that the signer install an application onto the tablet computer or smartphone. Additionally, such systems have typically required that the individual establish an account, with the associated difficulties of creating a new user name and password combination to remember. The attendant complications to using systems of this type make them less than desirable for executing documents. This is especially true of situations where only a few documents will be executed.